What is moral reasoning? For that matter, what is any sort of reasoning? Let me begin by making a few distinctions. First, there is a distinction between reasoning as something that that people do and the abstract structures of proof or “argument” that are the subject matter of formal logic. I will be mainly concerned with reasoning in the first sense, reasoning that people do. Second, there is a distinction between moral reasoning with other people and moral reasoning by and (...) for yourself . Moral reasoning with others may involve discussion with them, bargaining with them, and possibly arguing with them. (shrink)

This dissertation urges philosophers to reevaluate how they frame the question of the rationality of moral action. Its motivation is the thought that approaches to the question have suffered from mistakes in the relata. On the part of theories of practical reason, philosophers adopt an inadequate theory of action. On the part of moral theory, philosophers hold narrow conceptions of moral worth. As a result, not only have we failed to vindicate the thought that the moral agent acts well, our (...) conception of moral action invites the charge of remoteness from human life. ;In response, I propose we abandon some dogmas of moral psychology. My rethinking proceeds, negatively, by rejecting desire-based instrumentalist accounts of practical rationality and, positively, from renewed attention to virtuous action, a focus some suggest might counteract the remoteness of which morality's critics complain. I attend to the virtue of true friendship to defend non-instrumental conceptions of moral psychology and practical rationality that bring both into closer contact with commonsense norms of admirable action as they bear on what agents have reason to do. ;Chapter 1 introduces desire-based instrumentalism as the theory proponents claim is best suited to avoid the problem of the alienation of practical reason. I argue their claim does not survive scrutiny. ;In Chapter 2 I distinguish between explicit desiderative content and desiderative framing versions of desire-based instrumentalism. I argue the former is false to the content of deliberation and that arguments from the nature of intentional action fail to support the latter. ;Chapter 3 examines the evaluatively non-detachable quality of the descriptions under which actions performed out of friendship are intentional. I develop an account of virtuous action as nonteleologically ally motivated action understood in terms not of what it brings about but of its expressive quality. I argue action's expressive quality is key to assessing moral worth and rationality. ;Chapter 4 develops my account of virtuous agents' reasons for acting and asks what earns expressive action its claim to rationality. I argue certain actions inherit their rationality by expressing dispositions to regulate practical attitudes , dispositions themselves rationally assessable. (shrink)

It is shown that the first-order theory Th R (A) of a countable module over an arbitrary countable ring R is ℵ 0 -categorical if and only if $A \cong \bigoplus_{t finite, n ∈ ω, κ i ≤ ω. Furthermore, Th R (A) is ℵ 0 -categorical for all R-modules A if and only if R is finite and there exist only finitely many isomorphism classes of indecomposable R-modules.

It is shown that the first-order theory $\mathrm{Th}_R(A)$ of a countable module over an arbitrary countable ring $R$ is $\aleph_0$-categorical if and only if $A \cong \bigoplus_{t < n}A_i^{(\kappa_i)}, A_i$ finite, $n \in \omega, \kappa_i \leq \omega$. Furthermore, $\mathrm{Th}_R(A)$ is $\aleph_0$-categorical for all $R$-modules $A$ if and only if $R$ is finite and there exist only finitely many isomorphism classes of indecomposable $R$-modules.

British courts have adjudicated dozens of medical futility disputes over the past 10 years. Many of these cases have involved pediatric patients. All these judgements are publicly available in searchable legal reporters. And most were covered by the print or broadcast media.1 Yet, as noted by Dressler, none of these earlier cases received even a fraction of the public or scholarly attention that Charlie Gard has received. One might assess the Gard case from two different perspectives. At one level, the (...) Gard case is not unique. It is merely the n+1 medical futility dispute decided by the British courts. Admittedly, the Gard case has a much higher profile than earlier cases. But it announced no new rules or principles. It merely focused a spotlight on an already well-established process for resolving medical futility disputes. However, from another perspective, the Gard case is distinctive in at least five ways from other medical futility cases decided by the British courts. Because these unique features illustrate the limits or weaknesses of current rules and principles, they allude to potential improvements in the dispute resolution process. The papers in this special issue offer many valuable suggestions. After identifying the five unique features of the Gard case, I focus on the most prevalent two questions. Are courts the best forum for resolving these disputes? Is the best interest standard the right test for determining the limits of surrogate decision-making authority? Because the British courts have so many publicly available judgements in medical futility cases, it is possible to identify five distinctive features in the Gard case. First, Charlie’s parents were not asking GOSH clinicians to continue treating Charlie against either their professional judgement or against their personal beliefs. Instead, Charlie’s parents wanted to transfer him to another hospital that was willing …. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;In this thesis, I argue against the following common philosophical explanations of political disagreement: firstly, the view that those who disagree about political issues do so because they completely fail to understand each other; secondly, the view that political disagreement is value-laden and persists because disputes over values, unlike disputes over facts, are not amenable to rational resolution; thirdly, the general view that moral and political arguments are, in (...) principle, rationally unsettlable. I also consider the view that moral and political reasoning is open-ended and, as a result, that there is always something inconclusive about political argument. I argue that there are, indeed, a number of ways in which moral and political reasoning is open-ended, but maintain that none of these ways is sufficient to explain fully the existence and intractability of moral and political disputes in developed capitalist societies. ;I defend an alternative conception of how political disagreement should be explained. I make a distinction between rational and non-rational explanations of political disagreement and claim that, in general, philosophical explanations of political disagreement are rational ones because they appeal simply to the reasons those who disagree about political issues have for making the judgements they do. Instead, I urge that we should seek non-rational explanations for the holding of political beliefs and then construct explanations of political disagreement out of them. I defend an empirical model which attempts to do this. This model appropriates some aspects of an account of the construction of gender proposed by N. Chodorow, and employs the results of some research performed by C. Gilligan on the different ways in which men and women reason about moral and political issues. I apply the model to the work of two contemporary political theorists: John Rawls and Robert Nozick. (shrink)

Introducción -- Capítulo I Antecedentes y contexto -- Capítulo II Concepto de democracia y república -- Capítulo III Concepto de providencia y progreso -- Capítulo IV Relación e interacción de los conceptos.

The COVID-19 pandemic is also called a crisis of uncertainty because of so many unforeseeable events like canceled qualification competitions, loss of training facilities, and postponement of the Olympic games. Athletes and their entourage experience this uncertainty as stressful. Sport psychology practitioners are in a key position to support athletes in coping with these unforeseeable stressors. However, SPPs are similarly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and simultaneously have to cope with stress. Salutogenesis, which describes how to manage stress and to (...) stay well, provides a theoretical approach to how to cope with uncertainty. The salutogenetic approach aims at strengthening individuals’ sense of coherence and consists of three components, namely comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. Although it is known that the SoC can be enhanced via psychological skills training, so far, this approach has not been systematically applied to the elite sport context. Athletes have been advised to see SPPs for help; thus, the question of how SPPs handle the time of uncertainty while supporting others emerges. The aim of this contribution was to outline how the salutogenetic approach can be applied to strengthening SPPs’ SoC via a single-day four-part workshop. Additionally, we applied the workshop to N = 26 volleyball coaches and evaluated the workshop’s effects on participants’ psychological aspects [i.e., the Sense of Coherence—Leipziger short version, resilience : coping with uncertainty, affective response, and stress via semantic differentials] and the workshop’s quality ratings. The evaluation provides results that show a positive impact on a descriptive level of the participants’ SoC, uncertainty, affect, and stress perception; however, the results show no significant main effect of time [F = 1.04, p = 0.467, ηp2 = 0.454]. Workshop quality and skill acquisition were positively evaluated; 82.00% of the participants would use the learned tools in the future. Thus, we outline how this workshop might help strengthen SPPs’ SoC and at the same time empower them to strengthen their athletes’ SoC. Overall, we add a theoretical and a practical perspective on how to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic for SPPS, athletes, and their support network. (shrink)

One of the endearing traits of Asher Peres is that when somebody publishes something he knows to be wrong, he does not bother to refute it, even if the paper criticizes his own work. Life is too brief for such frivolity. As a small 70th birthday present I would like to answer one such recent attack. It’s not much of a present, since Asher will not read my paper. Why should he? He already knows this criticism is nonsense. But somebody (...) has to set the written record straight for future historians, so I will do it as part of this celebration. Fortunately this particular issue is so easily settled that this can be a very short paper. Since Asher is a master of the very short paper, my Peresian brevity is an important part of my act of homage. The criticism I address can be found in a new formulation by Karl Hess and Walter Philipp(1) of their view that all versions of Bell’s theorem are fundamentally flawed. I focus here only on their criticism of the version in Asher’s book.(2). (shrink)

In Barnett and Block (J Bus Ethics 88(4):711–716, 2009a), the present authors claim that borrowing short and lending long is fraudulent, and thus ought to be prohibited on legal grounds. Bagus and Howden (J Bus Ethics 90(3):399, 2009) take issue with our ethical analysis. The present paper is our response to these authors; it is an attempt to defend Barnett and Block (J Bus Ethics 88(4):711–716, 2009a) against the very interesting and important, although we believe, erroneous, criticisms of Bagus and (...) Howden (J Bus Ethics 90(3):399, 2009). (shrink)

In preparing these remarks, I have felt keenly an appreciation for and philosophic kinship with Walter Muelder’s position, partly because I have found his paper to contain a clear demarcation of a personalistic humanism from its Marxist counterpart—and personalism here need not be limited to philosophers holding a Personalism with a capital “P”; and partly because I think he and I are philosophic kin, although not quite brothers. I say this because, on the one hand, I do not think (...) his critique of Marxist humanism cuts quite deeply enough, on target as I think it is; and, on the other, his proposals about socialism and collectivism for the future go rather too far toward what I would take to be a depersonalization of social existence. Let me begin with the first of these two observations. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present the theoretical and philosophical assumptions of the Nursing Manifesto , written by three activist scholars whose objective was to promote emancipatory nursing research, practice, and education within the dialogue and praxis of social justice. Inspired by discussions with a number of nurse philosophers at the 2008 Knowledge Conference in Boston, two of the original Manifesto authors and two colleagues discussed the need to explicate emancipatory knowing as it emerged from the Manifesto . (...) Our analysis yielded an epistemological framework based on liberation principles to advance praxis in the discipline of nursing. This paper adds to what is already known on this topic, as there is not an explicit contribution to the literature of this specific Manifesto , its significance, and utility for the discipline. While each of us have written on emancipatory knowing and social justice in a variety of works, it is in this article that we identify, as a unit of knowledge production and as a direction towards praxis, a set of critical values that arose from the emancipatory conscience-ness and intention seen in the framework of the Nursing Manifesto. (shrink)

We stipulate, arguendo, that fractional-reserve-demand deposit banking is per se fraudulent. We ask whether or not time deposit banking can also be illicit, and answer in the positive, if there is a mismatch between the time dimensions of deposits and loans. To wit, if an intermediary borrows short and lends long.

BackgroundSexual minority (SM) older adults experience mental health disparities. Psychiatric disorders and neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) are risk factors for cognitive decline. Although older people in same-sex (SSR) compared to mixed-sex relationships (MSR) perform more poorly on cognitive screening tests, prior studies found no differences in rates of dementia diagnosis or neuropsychological profiles. We sought to explore the role of NPS on neurocognitive outcomes for SM populations. We compared cognitive performance and structural brain parameters of older adults in SSR and MSR.MethodsData (...) were originally collected at Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers (ADRCs). Inclusion criteria were: age of 55+ years, a study partner identified as a spouse/partner, and availability of T1-MRI brain volumes/thickness. Participants were labeled as either SSR or MSR based on their/their co-participant's reported sex. We identified 1,073 participants (1,037 MSR−555 cognitively unimpaired [CU]; 36 SSR−23 CU) with structural MRI data, Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), and Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire (NPI-Q) scores. A subset of the overall sample completed comprehensive neuropsychological assessment (n = 939; 908 MSR−494 CU; 31 SSR−22 CU). Covariates included in statistical models were age, sex, education, total intracranial volume, and apolipoprotein E genotype.ResultsMultivariate general linear models showed significant diagnosis-by-relationship interaction effects on the left parahippocampal gyrus volume. After stratification by relationship group, only cognitively impaired (CI) MSR had significantly smaller left parahippocampal volumes than MSR-CU. The SSR group showed better episodic memory performance. Severity of neuropsychiatric symptoms was negatively associated with volume/thickness of bilateral fronto-temporal areas and with MMSE scores, predominantly in the MSR group.ConclusionIn our study, MSR participants presented with a more compromised cognitive profile than SSR participants. MSR-CI participants showed significantly smaller left medio-temporal volumes, a neural signature of AD. Neuropsychiatric symptoms predicted smaller fronto-temporal volumes in the MSR more consistently than in the SSR group. These findings may be due to unexplored protective factors against cognitive decline in SM elders. Indeed, social support has been proposed as a protective factor warranting future investigation. (shrink)

The relationship between the Sophiology of Sergius Bulgakov and the neo-patristic movement within Orthodoxy is well-known. The neo-patristic synthesis won the day, and it is the dominant theological tradition within Orthodoxy. It is time for a serious reappraisal of Bulgakov’s theology by the Orthodox and non-Orthodox Christian theologians because Christian theology is faced with a looming bioethical issue, cybernetic enhancement technology. This technology raises a cybernetic-ethical version of the Sorites paradox that leads us to inquire at “what point do technological (...) enhancements take away or replace our humanity?” and “are cyborg enhancements ethical from an Orthodox Christian perspective?” Bulgakov’s Sophiology may provide important tools for assessing cyborg enhancements and answering these questions. This paper argues that Bulgakov’s Sophiology, particularly his theology of human creativity and belief that we can and should anticipate the spiritual bodies that we will have in the general resurrection, offers a framework for assessing the morality of technological alterations to our present bodily existence from an Orthodox perspective. (shrink)

Many philosophers of religion are unaware of research done on comparative religions, and continue to use language and to address issues that distort the nature of human religious endeavor. Despite work by Cantwell Smith, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgensteinians, and their critics, these scholars continue to confuse faith with (propositional) belief, and miss the significance of the dynamic nature of religious culture in historic context. In this paper, I defend Walter Kaufmann's view that religion addresses an essential human ontological need, on (...) the grounds that it makes sense of the immense diversity of religious expression and endeavor. (shrink)

Many philosophers of religion are unaware of research done on comparative religions, and continue to use language and to address issues that distort the nature of human religious endeavor. Despite work by Cantwell Smith, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgensteinians, and their critics, these scholars continue to confuse faith with (propositional) belief, and miss the significance of the dynamic nature of religious culture in historic context. In this paper, I defend Walter Kaufmann's view that religion addresses an essential human ontological need, on (...) the grounds that it makes sense of the immense diversity of religious expression and endeavor. (shrink)

Contributed articles on the representation of death in different religion, with reference to Indic and European philosophy; includes articles on the representation of death in literature.